Renewable energies: the Senate launches the debate on agrivoltaism

The vote was acquired by 251 votes against 3.

Examined in the context of a "niche" reserved for the group Les Indépendants, this text gave a foretaste of the debates which will open in less than two weeks in the hemicycle on the bill to accelerate renewable energies (EnR).

Sixty amendments were fiercely defended.

“The purpose of the proposed law is to add a tool against climate catastrophe,” said its author, Jean-Pierre Decool. "Our farmers are suffering, agrivoltaism could provide additional income to save farms and improve living conditions," he added.

The text includes a dozen provisions "aimed at encouraging projects truly combining main agricultural production and secondary electricity production while preventing (...) the uncontrolled development of alibis projects", specified the rapporteur Franck Menonville (Independents).

Among the safeguards, it provides for a systematic opinion from the Commission for the Preservation of Natural, Agricultural and Forest Areas (CDPENAF) and the "reversibility" of the facilities.

This text "usefully prepares the debates" on the EnR bill, said the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau. A government amendment to this bill should also promote agrivoltaism.

"The government already supports agrivoltaism", he underlined, "however it is necessary to go further".

“Agrivoltaism arouses as much enthusiasm as it divides since this subject is at the heart of two major issues, that of food sovereignty and that of energy sovereignty”, observed Guillaume Chevrollier (LR).

Without being opposed to it, several speakers insisted on the need to surround its development with precautions. The bill "still lacks a few safeguards," said environmentalist Daniel Salmon, whose group abstained, as did the majority communist PS and CRCE groups.

“To legislate on agrivoltaism is to put a foot in the door (…) to give credibility to the competition between nourishing agriculture and energy production”, warned the socialist Jean-Claude Tissot who voted against.

"The main objective must remain food", insisted Fabien Gay (CRCE).

Agrivoltaism "must not be a disguised artificialisation of the soil", affirmed the centrist Jean-Pierre Moga, while Henri Cabanel (RDSE with a radical majority) underlined with a play on words that he "must not make photovoltaic shade on roofs and wastelands".